My mother has a cabinet in her basement that contains some old 78 records. There are about 12 78's per "book". The books open up like an old photo album, with pockets for the records. It makes me think that is where the term "album" relating to records comes from. They are really thick records made out of shellac(I think) and very fragile.

Here are three pictures I took this morning:





The "books" on the top shelf contain 45's.

---

The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Where is the picture of the player that plays them?

---

Where is the picture of the player that plays them?

Right here... The Teac unit on the right, on top of the old stereo console piece of furniture.



I haven't tried to play them yet, but now I'm motivated. :~)

---

The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Have you noticed that it's much easier to find a "record player" now than it
was several years ago when CDs came onto the scene?

I guess people assumed that records would go away, but they haven't. Some
artists are even issuing their songs on records again.

---

~Sue~

Have you noticed that it's much easier to find a "record player" now than it
was several years ago when CDs came onto the scene?

Yes, my first CD was The Bangles, Everything, and then I started replacing all my old records. I've actually heard that CD's(and DVD's) have a limited shelf life, and will degrade to the point they are unplayable. Records won't do that, but you do have to be careful with them.

---

The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Just junked about 20 or so of my parents 78s, with some sadness. They had a much larger collection, but several moves wore it down. I looked into selling them, but there are very few collectable 78s these days, and my parents tastes didn't measure up. The few American pop recordings they had (like a teenage Doris Day) have so flooded the market that several web sites that buy and sell 78s have them on their list of "don't bother" artists.

My father had a lot of bag pipe music, and a few, from one particular label, were slightly collectable. If I paid $4 each to ship them to the UK, a dealer there would pay me $3 for each of them.

I looked into adding a 78 player to the sound system, but we are trying to downsize now (empty nesters) and I just couldn't justify the money or the space to play 20 albums. And I collect enough junk already, didn't want to start buying more 78s. I had trimmed my LP collection down to about 400, and then discovered some local places that sell old jazz LPs, and that number is creeping up.;)

---

I had trimmed my LP collection down

Those 78's spun pretty fast. For any youngster reading these posts, that means a 33 is a Long Playing record because it spins slower. ;~)

---

The mind is a weird and mysterious place

I have an old German record player still playing LPs at 33 1/3 RPM. A newer one, built in China, was soon broken. Good modern record players cost a lot of money.
Tullio
Also my cassette player died and I have tens of cassettes.

---

1 old 78 that I liked was Spike Jones & the City Slickers William Tell Overture.

Cheers.

1 old 78 that I liked was Spike Jones & the City Slickers William Tell Overture.

Cheers.

A classic. I have it on CD, another reason I didn't hang on to the 78s.

---

1 old 78 that I liked was Spike Jones & the City Slickers William Tell Overture.

Cheers.

A classic. I have it on CD, another reason I didn't hang on to the 78s.

The thing that scares me about CD's is I've read things that warn that they will not last a long time. When CD's first came out, I thought as most people probably did/do that they were archivally forever media, but supposedly that's not true, and the discs eventually will degrade and fall apart. I don't know... I'll probably fall apart first, but who knows? ;~)

---

The mind is a weird and mysterious place

1 old 78 that I liked was Spike Jones & the City Slickers William Tell Overture.

Cheers.

A classic. I have it on CD, another reason I didn't hang on to the 78s.

The thing that scares me about CD's is I've read things that warn that they will not last a long time. When CD's first came out, I thought as most people probably did/do that they were archivally forever media, but supposedly that's not true, and the discs eventually will degrade and fall apart. I don't know... I'll probably fall apart first, but who knows? ;~)

Well, depends on the disc. Anything you can write on in a computer is dye. Dye will die, and quickly. Manufactured discs are a sandwich. The bonds between the layers can come apart. The "silver" can oxidize and render it unreadable. The "gold" ones won't oxidize but still can separate. Best guess for optimum storage is about 100 years, but will there be a drive to put it in?

---

1 old 78 that I liked was Spike Jones & the City Slickers William Tell Overture.

Cheers.

A classic. I have it on CD, another reason I didn't hang on to the 78s.

The thing that scares me about CD's is I've read things that warn that they will not last a long time. When CD's first came out, I thought as most people probably did/do that they were archivally forever media, but supposedly that's not true, and the discs eventually will degrade and fall apart. I don't know... I'll probably fall apart first, but who knows? ;~)

I had one CD fall apart on me - TWICE!!! Soul II Soul - Club Classics Vol. One; it would play fine for a week, then start skipping words in songs... I'd pull the CD from my 10 Disc Changer to find the Recorded Media separating from the plastic CD Disc! (It just "flaked" right off the Disc.) I never bought a third copy! Out of approximately 100 CDs, that was the ONLY one that fell apart; so, I suspect SHODDY material from the manufacturer of the Soul II Soul Album!


TL

---

TimeLord04
Have TARDIS, will travel...
Come along K-9!
Join Calm Chaos

A lot depends on how the CD was made and how it is treated. Volume production usually molds the 0s and 1s into a plastic base and then covers that in lexan. If you keep that away from heat and solvents, and don't scratch the lexan too much, it should last a few centuries. If you use dye based writable Cds, which some smaller publishers do, don't expect it to last much more than a decade. Much less, if the dye is exposed to UV, like sunight.

The examples above sound like poor quality control in applying the lexan layer.

---

Well, depends on the disc. Anything you can write on in a computer is dye.

I don't understand that statement. Doesn't the computer laser "burn" the data?

A lot depends on how the CD was made and how it is treated. Volume production usually molds the 0s and 1s into a plastic base and then covers that in lexan.

So a commercial CD actually has a braille-like series of binary code imprinted on it?



I've also heard that you shouldn't use a marker on the front of those types of discs, either.

Will there be a way to play them in the future, anyway? Yes, I think so. Just as there are still record players today, I think a way to play CD's will persist.

I've just always wondered about those Voyager records... Are there instructions included on how to manufacture the playback device? What speed were they recorded in?

---

The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Well, depends on the disc. Anything you can write on in a computer is dye.

I don't understand that statement. Doesn't the computer laser "burn" the data?

NO. It "burns" a dye layer so the reflective layer is seen on playback. Remember they make "erasable" or "read/write" too.

A lot depends on how the CD was made and how it is treated. Volume production usually molds the 0s and 1s into a plastic base and then covers that in lexan.

So a commercial CD actually has a braille-like series of binary code imprinted on it?

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_manufacturing#Mastering

---

Well, depends on the disc. Anything you can write on in a computer is dye.

I don't understand that statement. Doesn't the computer laser "burn" the data?

NO. It "burns" a dye layer so the reflective layer is seen on playback. Remember they make "erasable" or "read/write" too.

When I think of dye I think of ink, so that confused me. I think you're referring to something more along the lines of what a die-cutter does, only in digital form.

---

The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Well, depends on the disc. Anything you can write on in a computer is dye.

I don't understand that statement. Doesn't the computer laser "burn" the data?

NO. It "burns" a dye layer so the reflective layer is seen on playback. Remember they make "erasable" or "read/write" too.

When I think of dye I think of ink, so that confused me. I think you're referring to something more along the lines of what a die-cutter does, only in digital form.

No dye like you dye clothes in.

It (the dye) is dark when the disc is virgin. The write laser "burns" or fades it by causing a chemical change making it transparent.

The reading laser either sees the dark dye or sees through the transparent dye to the reflective layer. 1's and 0's

---

It (the dye) is dark when the disc is virgin. The write laser "burns" or fades it by causing a chemical change making it transparent.

That is very interesting! I did not know that.

---

The mind is a weird and mysterious place

So a commercial CD actually has a braille-like series of binary code imprinted on it?

Not bumps like Braille, but pits. The untouched level area is called a land, pits and lands reflect the laser differently so one is a zero and the other is a one. (Forget which is which). The pits are in a spiral, which can be several miles long if it was unwound. The pits are microscopic.

You start with a thin layer of plastic that gets the pits pressed into the front of them from a metal master. The back is coated with a reflective metal, usually aluminium, then a layer of lacquer (transparent paint) and then the label can be printed on top of that. The other side, with the pits, gets a relatively thick layer of transparent lexan molded onto it. You can scratch and mark this, to some degree, but the pits and lands are untouched unless you get all the way through the lexan. Hence the durability of this type of CD. You just have to make sure the all the layers bond well to each other.

On a standard CD it takes 16 bits to make a single burst of music that is 1/44,000 of a second long. (thats 0.000022727 seconds.) Most modern CD players have some sort of error checking, so if a single pit or land gets read wrong the 16 bit number will fail parity check, and get replaced with the average of the number before and the number after. (More expensive players can have fancier error correction that can handle multiple read errors.) A single substitution like this is not audible. If you scratch or mark the lexan in a curve parallel to the edge of the disc you can screw up multiple numbers one after another, and then the error correction can sound weird, or even lead to skipping or periods of silence.

Fortunately, if you have scratches the lexan is polish-able with something like Brasso. You don't have to polish out the entire scratch, just round off the edges. The sharp corners screw up the laser light and lead to reading errors. Just make sure you get all the fine dust off the disc before you put in your player. I do this quite regularly with second hand CDs and even loaners from the public library. Dish soap in warm water works well for finger prints and other substances on the lexan. As long as the pits and lands are untouched, you can get back all the music.

---